For Nora McLellan, real life starts when the curtain goes up — and she’s got a lot of living left to do.
The career of this celebrated actress has spanned 22 seasons at the Shaw Festival, four at the Stratford Festival, and more than 30 episodes of the CBC television show Son of a Critch. But McLellan seems to remain as curious and playful as the eight-year-old version of herself that first appeared on stage, in a 1964 Vancouver Opera production of La Bohème.
She and the rest of the volunteer children’s chorus had been directed to retreat upstage at the end of Act Two to avoid a falling two-ton curtain. On opening night, while the rest of the chorus fell back, McLellan remained glued to her spot, transfixed by the lights, the orchestra, and the feeling of the crowd, before a crew member eventually pulled her to safety.
“Quite a debut, I would say,” reflects McLellan, as she sips a milky cup of tea and settles into an oversized white pillowy armchair in an office at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario. “It’s still always that same technicolour feeling for me. That little girl and this much older person are pretty much the same. I really do all of my living on stage.”
McLellan will be living on stage for the next few weeks as Helen Hubbard in Theatre Aquarius’ production of the 1930s-set Murder on the Orient Express, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and directed by Morris Panych. McLellan’s face comes alive with a puckish grin when she starts talking about the creative team and her fellow actors.
“It’s really exciting, and I know it’s going to be a lot of fun. We just have to find our way there. It’s only the second day of rehearsal, so I guess I should read the play!” she jokes.
I ask how she’s approaching the role, curious as to whether she has a consistent process for inhabiting new characters. She looks down for a moment, then peers up at me with a twinkle in her blue eyes.
“No, I think I just jump in and wait for a director to say ‘don’t ever do that’ or ‘keep going.’” We burst into giggles, and I’m struck by McLellan’s easy way of making me feel like we’re both in on the joke.
This leads into a series of hilarious anecdotes about past teachers and directors. McLellan delights in reenacting moments in the rehearsal hall that by today’s standards would be considered outrageous, and possibly even problematic (some of which she wrote about in a 2017 Intermission Artist Perspective). She seems to have taken it all in stride.
Throughout our hour-long interview, McLellan repeatedly shifts the focus away from herself, to shine a light on colleagues and friends. From directors like Derek Goldby and Neil Munro, to legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen, to fellow actors like Brent Carver and Susan Wright, it’s clear that McLellan feels a great deal of gratitude and respect for those who have influenced her. As she speaks about the people she has worked with over the years, some of whom she met as a teenager hanging out at Vancouver’s Arts Club Bar in the 1970s, she shows a soft and tender side.
“Losing friends that you’ve had since you were a teenager is the hardest thing. Not being able to be with the people who really know you, who share the same jokes,” she says. “So I love to tell stories about the antics of the theatre, and the people I’ve known. I love sharing those memories to keep that person alive, and the memory of their work alive. That’s really important to me.”
Returning to the topic of her process, she emphasizes it’s not something she wishes to overthink. For McLellan, talking about the magic is a surefire way to make it disappear. She suggests that in her case, character is concretely discovered through the material circumstances of the production (costumes, props, blocking), as well as the relationships built in the rehearsal hall and onstage.
I ask McLellan if her process ever clashes with castmates or directors who approach the work of character-building by applying rigorous methodologies or systematic approaches. She shrugs.
“I’ve often been equated with being more of a performer than an actor,” she says. “We all still arrive at the same time, at the same place, no matter what the process. Just work hard, put your head down, and you’ll get there.”
“Hard-working” is one of the phrases that Mark Critch uses to describe McLellan, along with “kind” and “talented.” He recalls seeing her audition tape for Son of a Critch, and the “unique mix of humour and terror” she brought to her performance. The creative team was so impressed that they returned to the writing room to create the character of Sister Rose specifically for McLellan. “She was just that good.”
Critch also remarks on the deep connection McLellan has forged with the younger members of the cast. “She has a very special relationship with all of them, and takes a lot of time to check in with them and see them outside of working hours. They adore her.”
McLellan attributes this sense of connection to having been a child actor. “I appreciate that experience, and I love that part of me,” she says.
McLellan completed her first paid acting contract at the age of 12, in a Holiday Theatre production of The Pied Piper, alongside the legendary Janet Wright. Her high-school principal gave her time off to take on other roles in downtown Vancouver, and after high school, McLellan spent two summers performing at the Theatre Royal in Barkerville, B.C., learning about musical theatre from actor-director Fran Dowie, another mentor.
During that period, the director Christopher Newton saw her perform in a production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and invited her to join him at the Vancouver Playhouse, where he served as artistic director from 1973 to 1979. There, McLellan became an apprentice in the actors’ union. She was soon touring across the country as an in-demand actress.
In 1978, she was living with the late Patricia Hamilton in Toronto. Hamilton was reading Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen, and a lightbulb went off for McLellan. She asked John Neville, with whom she had worked at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, to write her a letter of recommendation so she could bypass the extremely competitive audition process to study with Hagen in New York. She trained there for two years, on and off, before returning to Canada to join Newton at the Shaw Festival in 1980 — the year he started his two-decade-plus tenure as artistic director.
McLellan’s 22 seasons at Shaw were not consecutive; she spent three years at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in the 1980s, under the direction of John Hirsch and Daniel Sullivan, before returning to Shaw and Niagara-on-the-Lake, which she now calls home.
It was at Shaw that Andy McKim — a long-time friend who later became artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille — first saw her perform, in a 1980 production of Bertolt Brecht’s A Respectable Wedding. “It was an explosive, physical, terrifying experience… Nora was just on another plane when it came to the emotional experience [that her character the Bride] took us on,” he says over a video call. “I was spellbound by how committed she was to the vision of the work. Her performance still lives vividly in my mind — such unbridled chaos, so skilfully presented.”
When I chat with McKim, he comes prepared with stacks of books, reviews, and articles, determined to impart the remarkable breadth and depth of this venerable actress’ range. He speaks at length about her Dora Award-winning leading performance in Morwyn Brebner’s debut play Music for Contortionist, which premiered in 2000 at Tarragon Theatre (where he was associate artistic director), holding up to the camera a silver-framed triptych of photographs that show McLellan dancing in character. (Her work in Company Theatre’s 2017 production of Annie Baker’s John won her another Dora Award, for outstanding female performance in the independent division.)
“Her performance took up the whole stage,” continues McKim on A Respectable Wedding. “It was hellaciously funny. Nora was uniquely suited to the task, to the strangeness and the humour of this woman [she was playing]. This capacity that Nora has of engaging with the chaos of the character demands an awful lot.”
McKim finds McLellan to be a generous actor and human being, which can sometimes come at a cost to the self.
“Part of the openness and the heart is how vulnerable she is to life’s experiences,” he says. “It doesn’t surprise me. It may not always be the best strategy in life, but it sure is as a performer. She has a fresh, childlike quality.”
When I ask McLellan if she feels her imagination is sometimes at odds with the increasing physical limitations that come with age, she laughs.
“There are, physically, things I cannot do so much anymore, but my brain says ‘Yeah, let’s climb up the ladder! Let’s do all the things!’ My brain can see me playing Juliet right now, which would not necessarily be the best production… but it would be fun.”
In another example of how McLellan understands her life and work as situated in the context of her theatre community, she credits her massage therapist of 30 years, Terry Harford, a fellow former actor at the Shaw Festival, with “getting under the hood and keeping the engine going.
“It’s so great to have someone with that kind of continuity, who can help me understand what my body can do and what it can’t.”
As for what’s coming next in McLellan’s career, she says she’s inspired by the next generation of theatre-makers, in particular the growing number of women younger than her who are stepping into artistic director roles across the country; she cites Mary Francis Moore (at Theatre Aquarius), Rachel Peake (at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario), Krista Jackson (at Imago Theatre in Montreal), and Ashlie Corcoran (at the Arts Club in Vancouver), among many others. She sees a marked change in the way rehearsal rooms are run now compared to when she started out, when the lines between the professional and the personal could be blurrier.
“I’m very glad for some of the boundaries in place today, because I will do whatever I’m asked to do,” McLellan admits. “I feel like I’m a point-and-shoot actor. I don’t like to say no, I just like to give it a try.”
During a phone conversation, Jackson, who recently directed McLellan in two separate productions of Sophia Fabiilli’s Liars at a Funeral, reflects on McLellan’s willingness to adapt by sharing the story of their first rehearsal together. On that day, Jackson led the full company in creating a “wall of values,” with everyone expressing what they needed in order to do their best work.
“Nora was so into that. She was so proud,” Jackson recalls, adding that McLellan took photos of the wall and sent them in to be featured in the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association newsletter. “It’s great to see someone who’s been around for a long time, doing her thing, embracing the moment, [and understanding] that we’re all evolving and trying to be better in the room.”
As our conversation comes to a close, McLellan mentions that at this juncture in her career, people are starting to ask her if she is planning to retire.
“I just say no! I’ve finally started to figure this all out. And this is after over 50 years in the business.” She pauses to mutter “60” under her breath with impeccable comedic timing. “It could be that people reading this will say ‘Oh, does she think she’s at the top of her game? She’s past it!’ But I feel like I can do many more things than I could do before, that I just didn’t understand. I intend to go down swinging.”
When I ask McLellan what legacy she hopes she will leave behind, she laughs nervously. “I’m already anxious about this question,” she confesses.
“I’m just thinking now of all the people we’ve lost.” She closes her eyes, pauses, lost in memories. A beat, and she’s smiling again.
“I just want people to remember that we had fun. There’s nothing more liberating than just laughing… A little of me goes a long way, and maybe I can be too much at times, but I love laughing in a rehearsal, [or] with people that you meet on a walk… just laughing. It’s the best thing in the world.”
Murder on the Orient Express runs at Theatre Aquarius until March 29. More information is available here.
Theatre Aquarius is an Intermission partner. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Treasa Levasseur
Treasa (she/her) is a Juno-nominated songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, as well as a graduate of the BFA Acting program at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson Theatre School). She is a passionate arts educator and community organizer. She is an associate artist at Theatre Direct, on the teaching staff at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Theatre Aquarius, and performs a variety of roles within the folk music ecology. She has been a regular book review columnist on CBC’s The Next Chapter since 2010.
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WRITTEN BY
Dahlia Katz
Dahlia Katz is a professional photographer who specializes in portraits, promotion, lifestyle, events, weddings, and the performing arts. She is also a director, dramaturg, and puppeteer.
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